Nigeria needs to bring morality to the fore

Oloye Adegboyega Adeniji is the Chairman of Movement For Fundamental Change (MFC) in Nigeria, a coalition of about 150 civil society groups, Non Governmental Organisations (NGO’s) high networth activitists who believe that governance in Nigeria should not be left in the hands of present crop of leaders. The pressure group is advocating change in governance as it strongly believe that democracy is yet to take root in Nigeria, after 15 years of uninterrupted practice of democratic governance. In this interview, the MFC chairman extrays the score card on Nigeria’s democracy and how the country can be rescued and brought back on the path of honour.

Fifteen years of uninterrupted democracy in Nigerian, how will you score the level of governance so far.

To us, there is absolutely no cause for jubilation on our democratic governance so far, as we are all witnesses to the staccato of crisis, social, economic, cultural and political, tearing at the very soul of the land. Taking stock of our democracy, the MFC deems it fundamentally important to rouse Nigerians to examine our brand of democracy and decide if indeed Nigeria as a country can possibly continue the way we are at present, hence this score card on our democracy. We have relied strictly on conservative official statistics in drawing the scoreboard and yet what stare us in the face at the end of the exercise is extremely damning of the present political class, the vampire economic system it has spurned in the past 15 years and the resultant social anomie.

What are these anomalies identified in the system?

The present crop of leaders are evidently indiscipline, parochial, egocentric and gluttonous. Nigeria remains one of the most corrupt nations in the world, according to the corruption perception index (CPI) 2013 released by Transparency International, a global watchdog. In the last survey released on December 2, 2013, Nigeria remained 14th out of 177 nations in the world, scoring 25 points out of a possible 100 points. We were ranked alongside crisis-torn Central African Republic and Cameroun. Never before in our history do we have the spate of unabated looting of public resources most recent of which are: the N2.6 trillion lost to fuel subsidy scams, N32 billion police pension scam, crude oil worth about U$2 billion stolen monthly, and N53 billion NCC Spectrum sale racket, the 24 Million barrels of oil with $1.6 billion stolen through signature forgery, US $20 billion reported missing by former CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, earning him a sack. The counting is endless.

Another pitiable situation is our declining social services. Professionals in the educational sector continue to protest the abysmal conditions of learning and research in educational institutions due to poor funding; shortage of quality staff, dearth of infrastructure; inadequate classrooms and offices; inadequate laboratories for teaching and research, shortage of books and other learning materials, among other lapses in that sector, resulting in the highest out of school children population in the world, particularly in the North east parts of the country. Any wonder that the Boko Haram tragedy is feeding on this massive layer of uneducated, unskilled unemployed and unemployable youths.

What is your take then on the security situation in the country?

The cause of insecurity in the country is the result of the widening gap between the rulers and the people. Ostentatious lifestyle of the political leaders, especially those occupying public offices is outrageous. It gives the ordinary man the impetus to get rich by all means, hence the prevalent heinous crimes pervading the country, such as kidnapping, cyber crime and all sorts of vices that have been aggravated by the Boko Haram insurgency. Aside from the terrorists malaise, ritual murders orchestrated by politicians, extra judicial killings by police and other security force etc compounds a gory scenario of a society in the thrones of social cannibalism.

What other impacts are these social malaise having on the economic well being of the people.

Poverty level in Nigeria grew from 54% in 2004 to almost 70% currently, meaning over 100 million Nigerians live in absolute poverty, youth unemployment stands at the conservatively estimated 54% of all employable youths, meaning at least 40 million young people are without jobs.

Nigerian’s wealth increased from 290 billion USD in 1990 to 510 USD in 2014, making it the highest GDP in Africa. Nigeria also boast of one of the highest economic growth rates in the world, no wonder the country now boast of 12 new multi billionaires in US Dollars, and several thousand multimillionaires in US Dollars, according to Forbes magazine.

It is scandalous that government officials and political appointees in Nigeria are among the highest paid in the world. Nigeria senate President earns several times the salary of President Obama of America, while President Goodluck Jonathan has 9 aircraft in his presidential fleet with ministers and governors incurring billions of dollars from private aircraft charters, in a country where the ordinary citizen can barely afford three square meals daily.

How does the MFC wants to bring about the well desired changes in to our governance.

The MFC have resolved to work assiduously with morally upright intellectuals and captain of industries with high integrity to bring back our value system to international best practices, and enthrone severe punishment for indiscipline within all strata of the society. This shall come about through mass mobilization of the people to agitate for change of this present leadership through democratic means. There must be punishment for indiscipline in all its ramifications.

All acts of indiscipline, impunity, imposition, arbitrariness and other maladies running down our democracy must be totally eradicated. We need to encourage international best practices and bring morality to the fore. It is most unfortunate that the present system we run has relegated morality in place of illegality. That is why we have congestion in our courts, and high level of corruption in our judiciary.

What do you intend doing towards the 2015 general election.

The MFC will first and foremost build confidence in the people by identifying new set of leaders with high moral standard, integrity and observance of the rule of law for presentation to the electorate. Once we have the confidence of the great people of Nigeria, the people shall decide the political platform they want to use to actualize their noble cause.

Moreover, we need to stress that MFC was formed by Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), Congress of Political Leader, CDHR, CLO, Civil Society groups amongst other groups that belief that Nigeria can be greater than it is presently.